The present invention disclosed herein relates generally to electronic program guides. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and method for displaying more effective banner and tune-in ads in an interactive program guide.
The number of video channels that offer various programming content, including the Internet and other on-line content, continues to increase. Channel surfing is no longer a viable solution for viewers to find an interesting program by sequentially or randomly examining every channel. As a result, electronic program guides (EPG) that continuously list channels and their content televised at a particular time will become practically indispensable for viewers.
Because of this necessity to use an electronic program guide, an opportunity is presented to advertise various products and services in the EPG contemporaneously with program schedule data. Examples of the use of advertising with programs guides are shown in International Application No. PCT/US97/23852 titled “EPG with Advertising Inserts,” and U.S. Pat. No. 5,940,073 titled “Method and System for Displaying Other Information in a TV Program Guide,” both of which are hereby incorporated by reference into this application. PCT application PCT/US97/23852 discusses the insertion of an advertisement between television program listings in an EPG screen. The advertisement appears as a single line in the program guide grid and scrolls or otherwise moves along with and in identical fashion as the rest of the program listings. U.S. Pat. No. 5,940,073 discusses an EPG having an area on the EPG display, separate from the program listings portion of the display, for advertising programs, products and services, where the advertising information changes as the user moves the EPG cursor from cell to cell or after the passage of a predetermined number of seconds.
In both cases, users are shown advertisements on the same screen as the program guide listings. However, neither reference is particularly sensitive to user viewing behavior, especially in the use of EPGs. Placing an advertisement in a separate region of the EPG display from the program guide listings requires a user to turn his or her eyes away from the program guide listings to view the advertisement. Since users pull up the EPG specifically to see the program guide listings, and usually only for a short period until a desired program to view is located, they are unlikely to pay any particular attention to the advertisement appearing on a separate portion of the display. Placing the advertisement in the program listings portion of the display appears to overcome this problem; however, users are likely to pay only brief attention to the ad as it scrolls past while searching through the program guide listings.
A need therefore continues to exist for an improved system and method that presents schedule data and advertising data to viewers in an effective but unobtrusive and flexible manner.